1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a method and apparatus for recording and/or reproducing data for recording and/or reproducing speech (audio) data or video data to or from a random-accessible recording medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, a hard disc array device, made up of a large number of interconnected large-capacity hard disc devices having a recording capacity of tens to hundreds of gigabytes (Gbs), is being put to practical use.
The hard disc array device is suited to recording data, such as speech and/or video data, having an extremely large data volume, and is excellent as an editing recording/reproducing apparatus because it can reproduce optional speech/video data in a short access time.
Meanwhile, the video data and the speech data are collectively recorded on the recording medium, such that, if data are managed on the file basis, the video data and the speech data are handled as a group. It is therefore difficult to handle the video data and the speech data independently of each other.
The result is such defects that the number of channels of speech data cannot be changed partway on the file basis, speech data files of different channels cannot be made to co-exist such that the number of channels has to be set to the maximum number with consequent waste of the recording medium, that an image and the maximum number of speech channels are used in case of data comprised of data made up only of the speech or data made up only of the image thus wasting the recording medium, and that it is not possible to change only the image or only optional chancels of the speech.
In addition, if, in editing the speech/video data, the totality of the edited speech/video data are re-recorded on a recording medium having the speech/video data as the object of editing recorded thereon, the totality of the speech/video data of the same contents as those of the edited speech/video data are recorded in duplicate, thus wasting the recording medium and disabling editing of speech/video data of prolonged time duration.